Poll Shows Golden Dawn Rising, PASOK Vanishing

The more PASOK leader Evangelos Venizelos supports austerity, the more support he loses

The three parties in Greece’s uneasy coalition government are paying a high price for their unremitting support of more austerity measures, with polls showing the ruling New Democracy Conservatives have fallen behind the major opposition Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) and that the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party is surging fast while the once-dominant PASOK Leftists have fallen to last place among the six parties in Parliament.

On the same day that 70,000 Greeks were demonstrating in Athens against more pay cuts, tax hikes and slashed pensions being planned by the government of Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, a poll by the survey company VPRC put SYRIZA first with 30.5 percent, compared to 27 percent for New Democracy.

Golden Dawn, which got only 0.29 percent of the vote in 2009 when it was considered an extremist fringe party, is now in third with 14 percent, double what it received in June when it won 18 seats in the Parliament.

As Golden Dawn presses its anti-immigrant, anti-gay, anti-Semitic, anti-bailout, ultra-religious platform it is gaining with each extreme move, the poll indicated. The party is also benefiting from its fierce opposition to austerity measures that are attached to $325 billion in rescue loans from the Troika of the European Union-International Monetary Fund-European Central Bank.

The biggest surprise, however, was the 5.5 percent given to PASOK, less than half the 12.3 percent it won in June. The party had 44 percent of the vote in the 2009 elections which it won, but is disappearing after former premier George Papandreou’s regime imposed austerity, which is still being backed by its new leader, Evangelos Venizelos.

He and Democratic Left leader Fotis Kouvelis make up the junior partners in Samaras’ government, which is seeking to pass another $17.45 billion in spending cuts and tax hikes to release a delayed $38.8 billion loan from the Troika. Earlier polls the Democratic Left at about 4 percent, barely about the 3 percent threshold needed to win seats in Parliament under election rules. In more bad news for Samaras, the poll showed nearly 90 percent of Greeks believe he has the country on the wrong track by going along with more austerity measures and no visible plans to help Greece recover from its crushing economic crisis.

A bewildered Venizelos, who has vacillated over support or opposition for austerity and is a despised figure to many Greeks because, as finance minister under Papandreou, he doubled income and property taxes, has called for a critical gathering of his party in February, a congress he said could decide PASOK’s fate.

He may not make it that far as a number of party stalwarts said they are bailing out of PASOK and a rebel faction within wants him to dissociate himself and the party from the austerity measures before it disappears.

“Our aim is to transform PASOK into a modern, institutional, democratic party,” Venizelos said during a meeting of the Socialists’ political and organizational secretariat. “We want a PASOK that will not represent the rearguard forces of supposed leftism, which represent privileges and reactionary behavior,” Venizelos added in a clear dig at SYRIZA, which has run past PASOK.

During the meeting, it emerged that several of PASOK’s 33 MPs want the party to take a more active role in the coalition government. Venizelos had prevented any of the party’s lawmakers from joining the Cabinet following the June elections. Venizelos also has given clear public backing to Samaras, PASOK’s major rival.

“He speaks on behalf of all us, he speaks on behalf of the country,” he told PASOK members ahead of Samaras’ appearance at the European Union leaders’ summit in Brussels on Oct. 18. But several of his party’s Members of Parliament said they are dismayed at the lack of leadership and the way it is being run, discontented over his awkward handling of a list of 2,000 Greek depositors in the Geneva branch of HSBC. He failed to act on it or check for possible tax evasion while he was finance minister.

31 COMMENTS

I personally couldn’t care less about the tourist industry. As for your claims, GD are extremists but they are a long long way from winning an election. In addition the vast majority of GD supporters don’t support them ideologically beyond simply taking back our borders from illegals and protecting us against FYROM. Had the central parties performed their duties to defend our country on these issues, then GD would have no support whatsoever.

GD exploited a void in policy to push its other junk. Unfortunately this void was created because a significant number of far leftist collectivist cowards have bizarrely learned to frame any attempt to defend our borders or ethnic Greek identity as “racism” and “fascism” (following the lead of their alleged comrades in foreign press that try to morally justify calling FYROM “Macedonians”… while pretending not to notice FYROM’s sudden identity quick change into ancient Macedonians and irredentism)

Even Samaras, who’s a moderate compared to extremists like Syriza and GD, is slandered in this manner by even some moderate leftists for trying to defend Greece against illegals and FYROM This in turn drives Greeks to far right fringe groups like GD.

The correct answer is moderation but unfortunately the far left and far right nuts can’t seem to understand they both harm our country while claiming they “care” about it.

From where I’m standing neo-nazi’s are the good guys. Look at what governments both left and right have done. It’s no longer our country, and it’s typically us who suffer because the streets are no longer safe to walk in.

That’s so right. The far left are the biggest murderers of their own people (by a long shot).

While the answer to everything not far left by far leftists is “fascism” and “racism”….the reality is communists like Stalin and Mao were responsible for more far more deaths of their own citizens than even Hitler.

The streets are no longer safe because of gangs of black shirt wearing thugs who are attacking random people in the name of XA. I cant wait until one of these XA cunts gets a knife in his throat or a baton across his skull because he messed with the wrong person.

Winston, The Greek people dont want your pompous pommie arses here anyway. Greeks would much rather see other nationalities, you know the ones who behave courteously, tip their servers, and dont think they are better than everyone else just because they still bow to a dusty, has been queen. Stay at home.

You’d better care about the tourism industry, it is only the SINGLE LARGEST industry in Greece and furthermore employs hundreds of thousands of Greek citizens. You should go over and slap your mother in the face for raising such a complete and utter fool.

If you dont think foreign visitors who are considering visiting Greece dont read the papers and see countless stories online about the Greek cunts, otherwise know as Golden Dawn, you are embarrassingly mistaken. And if you are too stupid to ignore how many hotels, tavernas, ferry services and others that have vanished in the past year because of the decline of tourism, then you need to wake up, or better yet ask anyone else who may not be living with their head in a hole. Tourism is declining and more and more and more GREEK business owners and workers will be losing their jobs once no one decides to visit. Don’t be such a shallow dolt.

And that’s XA’s fault? Don’t be stupid. Only recently there was a news report about how the increased taxes on restaurant owners caused 60,000 restaurants to close down. It’s the failing economy, not XA.

Really? What media have you been watching? It is impossible to keep the media from creating a crime wave out of nothing, from needlessly scaring the public with tabloid garbage when crime rates are in fact falling. You, sir, are an ignorant, uninformed idiot, and people like you, the fascists, the enemies of humanity, the real problem.

You are a racist and a fascist, you despise the Greek people and are an embarrassment to your country. Do the world a favor and blow your brains out, this would be a better world to live in without pieces of human garbage like you around.

Yes, I’m sure plenty of people will visit Greece with all of the videos of people of the wrong skin color being pulled away and beaten up by human garbage like you. Europe never reformed. I hope you guys have another fucking war, and I hope you all die this time, you fucking fascists! You have always been an embarrassment to the human race!

The ideology of Nationalism always leads to destruction, division, and resentment between human beings. I thought we learned this lesson after WWII, but if the Greeks want to have another war, and be taught once more, fine with it. It’s fun to kill nationalist garbage.

I don’t know how it the situation is in you country but in France where I live, crime is high (especially violence against persons). Also while speaking about faschism, several weeks ago, muslims french-algerians attacked gypsies who had just settled in their area to force them out. Faschism isn’t where you are looking …

If you think our grandfathers fought the italians and the germans because they were nazis, you are wrong. Our grandfathers fought the Italians and the Germans because they wanted to invade Greece, that’s all. Now muslims try to invade Greece and hopefully they will be thrown out exactly like our grandfathers throw out the italian fashists. Greece has had 400 years of Ottoman occupation so many people like kinda become irritated if somebody want to invade our homeland. Also with Turkey nearby, it would be suicidal to welcome millions of muslims in Greece who would take arms to defend their turkish muslims friends if there is a conflit. And you better avoid thinking that leftists extremists are better than the GD extremists because that’s not the case. They are the same kind of people, only do they have a political disagreement. As for our Ancestors, in the Lausanne Treaty in the 1920s all muslims from Greece (excepted thoses from Thrace) were deported to Turkey and all Orthodox Christians from Turkey (excepted thoses from Constantinoupolis) were deported to Greece. And why ? To avoid killing each others. If you don’t know our history, you better avoid speaking about our Ancestors. For the rest, I’m against GD, but also against leftist extemists and if the crooked clowns who call themself politicians would have done their job and deported all the illegals in their country of origin, we wouldn’t have the GD problem.